City Mouse
by timeis1800hours
Summary: NEW: Chapter Two. It was like being totally isolated, like how it must feel to stand on the moon, and look out into the great vastness of the universe and realize how very tiny you are.
1. Leaving On A Jet Plane?

This fanfiction story is written solely for the entertainment of the readers and is not for profit. No infringement on their respective copyrights are intended by the author in any way, shape or form. All original characters and plots are copyright of the author.

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**The City Mouse**

"You're sending me _where_?" I yelled.

"Buentiempo, Texas. Chad, please stop yelling," my mother said.

"Where the fuck is Buentiempo, Texas?" I replied, not bothering to lower my voice.

My mother winced and looked around the living room apologetically, like we had an audience.

"It's in the south of Texas, right on the Colorado River. I grew up there; you must have heard me talking about it before," she said.

"I've never heard you fucking mention Buentiempo," I said. I folded my arms over my chest and glared at her with my best One-Eyed Withering Stare.

"Chad. Language, please." My mom sighed. "Your train leaves in forty minutes. I went ahead and packed for you." She gestured to my duffel bag, which I noticed was sitting on the couch.

"Forty minutes? I don't even get to say goodbye to my friends?" I said, starting to yell again.

"You were just _out_ with your friends. Didn't you say goodbye then?" my mom said.

"Yeah, but I told them 'I'll fucking see you again tomorrow,' I didn't say 'My mom is shipping me off to some place called Buentiempo, I'll see you in a fucking month.'"

My mom closed her eyes and sighed. "I'm sorry to spring this on you, Chad, but I knew that if I told you in advance you'd put up such a fuss and I just couldn't deal with that."

"What, I'm not putting up enough of a fuss right now?" I walked over to my duffel on the couch, picked it up, and threw it in the general direction of my room, where it landed with a soft thump. "Look, mom! This is me, putting up a fuss! Yelling, and throwing things! Hello! This is me saying 'There is no way in hell that I'm leaving.'"

She sighed again, and I twitched with anger. I hated that she could keep so calm about stuff like this. Who was she to send me off to the middle of nowhere without my say? Did she control my life? No, she fucking did _not_.

"Chad, go pick up your duffel."

"No."

"CHAD. Go pick up your duffel bag _now_!"

I was suddenly reminded why my mom was able to raise four boys through teenager-hood in a small apartment in New York without having us revolt against her – when she wants to, she can be really fucking authoritative.

I picked up the duffel bag, and started walking to my room.

"Where are you going?" my mom demanded.

"I'm getting some more stuff. If you're making me go on this fucking trip, I at least get to decide what to bring."

She checked her watch, and then nodded. "Alright, but hurry. There is no way you're going to miss your train."

I walked into my room. It was pretty messy, but that wasn't actually my fault. My third oldest brother had spent the summer splitting his time between the nearby college campus, our apartment, and his girlfriend's apartment. Every time he came and went, he'd leave behind more stuff to rot on the floor. By now my mom would've cleaned it up or made me clean it up, but Jason kept coming back when he and his girlfriend fought, so there was never time in between his impromptu visits to straighten everything out.

I kicked a couple Sports Illustrated magazines out of the way, and made sure to step purposefully on Jason's favorite shirts. Deftly avoiding an old jock strap (wait, was that his, or mine?) I grabbed my guitar and my song notebook from the shelf by the window seat. I had some new material I was working on, really raw stuff about my dad, and if I had to go to Buentiempo, I would make the best of it by doing some real writing –

"No way."

I glanced up. My mom was standing in the doorway.

"'No way' what?" I said.

"You're not bringing your guitar."

I tried out the One-Eyed Withering Stare again, but it had even less of an effect this time.

"You're not bringing your guitar, and do you know why? Because you'll spend all your time in Buentiempo doing _exactly_ what you do when you're here: moping in your room and writing songs. And that's why I'm sending you to Buentiempo, Chad! So you'll get _out_ in the world, so you'll get some fresh air!"

She walked over to me and grabbed the guitar. "So no guitar. Now come on, or we'll be late."

Thinking about it afterwards, it was a really childish thing to do, but maybe I just wasn't thinking clearly.

I sat down on the floor, cross-legged, arms over my chest, and glared at her. "I'm not moving," I said.

She looked at me like I'd sprouted horns, and then rolled her eyes. "Chad, I can't believe you. What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm not leaving," I repeated.

"Chad Theodore Avery, you will get your butt off that floor, or so help me I will—"

"I'm not, and you can't make me."

She raised one eyebrow, as if to say, "Oh, I can't, can't I?" and then walked out of the room.

I sat there for another minute, wondering if my childishness had actually worked, and then slowly stood up and walked to the door. If it had worked, and I was staying, I at least wanted my guitar back.

I stepped out into the living room. "Mom?"

She didn't respond.

"Hey, mom? I'm sorry I yelled at you." I walked through the living room, and poked my head into her bedroom door. Nothing. I checked the office/den that used to be Ben and Drew's room. Nothing. I knocked on the bathroom door, and it swung open. Nothing.

Where could she have gone? She must still be in the apartment, because I hadn't heard the front door open.

I walked through the living room, to the dining room, and then to the kitchen. I was standing in the doorway to the kitchen when all of a sudden, my mom popped up from behind the counter and grabbed my arm. She forced me towards the door, and I hardly had time to think, much less struggle, before I was standing in the hallway, blinking stupidly.

She reached back into the kitchen, grabbed my duffel, and then slammed the door behind us.

"What the _hell_?" I screeched.

She gave a grim smile, perfect for hiding a "take _that!_" sentiment behind a "this is for your own good" face. She grabbed my arm, and pulled me to the elevator.

Okay. I didn't struggle. I mean, she's my _mom_. Yeah, maybe she is a little stronger than I am, but no matter who has the advantage, it's still wrong to lash out at your mom, right? As I thought about that, the elevator door clicking closed behind us, I was suddenly overwhelmed with guilt.

What had I done? I yelled! At my mom! You're not supposed to do that, especially not to someone as awesome as my mom! And I do have an awesome mom. She's great about stuff, like giving me space, letting me stay out late, letting me listen to my kinds of music, and buy my own clothes. Not all the guys I know get that, and they're constantly telling me that my mom is pretty damn cool. (Of course, they also say she's a total MILF, but at least I can hit them for that.)

I felt like I was turning into a monster, into some person I didn't know or understand, and by the time the elevator reached the lobby, I was just about ready to apologize for being a horrible son and give her a big hug, and let bygones be bygones.

But then she marched me out to the street, stuffed the duffel bag in my hand, and hailed a cab, and I remembered why we'd been fighting in the first place.

"Mom, I'm not going!" I yelled.

A couple of passer-bys turned to stare at me, but my mother said nothing. A cab pulled up to the curb, and my mom yanked the door open and started herding me towards the door.

"I'm not going! I'm not!"

She rolled her eyes. "Chad, don't make this harder on yourself."

I wasn't making it hard for me, I was _trying _to make it hard for _her_. "Mom, I'm the last son you have living at home! Why do you want to send me away?" I half sat, half fell into the cab.

My mom climbed in after me, and plopped the duffel onto my lap. "Because you need to get away for a while, Chad. You're wasting your summer."

"I am not! I'm doing good things with my summer! I'm writing, and reading, and hanging out with my friends, and –"

"You've barely left your room for the past month, Chad!" my mom said.

The cab driver looked at us, sighed, and sat back in the driver's seat while the car idled.

"Look, baby, I know you're upset about your dad, but –"

"This has nothing to do with dad! What makes you think this has anything to do with dad?" I exclaimed.

She put a hand on my shoulder. "It's okay to be upset, but you have to understand that your dad has moved on, and it's time you did the same. He's settled into his new home, with his new wife, and her kids and," my mom realized that her voice was starting to sound a little bitter, so she took a deep breath before she continued. "You chose to stay with me, Chad. You could've gone with your father, but you said you wanted to stay, and we let you make that choice.

"Now I realize that the last six months have been hard on you. Junior year is stressful, and added onto that you had the divorce, and Jenna breaking up with you – I understand that, Chad, and I was hoping that the summer would let you relax, detox, just let all the tension go so that you could start your senior year with a clean slate."

I turned away from her and stared out the window, my knuckles clenched white against the duffel.

"Your summer is passing by, baby. It's time you faced the facts – just like I did, when your dad moved out. We're divorced, Chad, and you live with me. That's not going to change. He's _not coming back_."

I had this weird lump in my throat, so I swallowed a couple times. The cab smelled like weed and damp leather and animal fur, and I guess I was allergic to it because my eyes started watering and I had to keep blinking a lot so it wouldn't look like I was crying.

My mom let out a long sigh, and tilted her neck against the head rest.

"I don't want to see you waste your life, Chad. I feel like you're in a slump, and I'm trying my very best to get you out of that slump, but I think it would be best if we had a little time away from each other. This isn't just for you. It's for me, too. I'm not quite as Zen about this whole thing as I seem to be. Jason going back to college, your dad moving to Florida, Drew and his wife and their first baby – it does seem pretty sudden, doesn't it? I need some time to deal with it on my own, some me-time, okay?" She looked at me, and I ignored her.

She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a white envelope. "I've written a letter explaining a little more about where you're going and who you'll be stay with. And your travel itinerary."

My mom, always the obsessive-compulsive traveler, even when she wasn't the one traveling.

She put the letter in my hand, and then slammed the taxi door. "Grand Central, please," she said to the cab driver, as she wiped a few tears from her eyes.

He looked at both of us like we were crazy, and then we were off.

I walked down the aisle, duffel in hand, and my absolute best, fiercest, don't-fuck-with-me glare on my face. Of course, people don't usually mess with me anyway, but I was in a really shitty mood, and glaring made me feel better.

People don't mess with me for a variety of reasons. First of all, in a city like this, people pretty much ignore each other most of the time, which is fine by me. Second of all, I am a tall, relatively muscular, white male, and that'll keep a lot of different kinds of people from messing with you – it sucks, but it's true. Third of all, I have an eyebrow piercing. That speaks for itself. You don't mess with a guy who has an eyebrow piercing.

And fourth of all, I have a beige colored eye patch over my left eye that I never take off. I don't take it off because I'd rather people stare at me for an eye patch than stare at me for a scarred, milky-blue, droopy, left eyeball. How did I come to posses such a thing? Yeah, funny story, that one.

I don't usually tell anyone the reasons behind the eye patch because it's actually not that interesting. I've never been a back-alley knife fighter, I wasn't a pirate in a previous life, I don't have X-ray vision in one eye – it's just that me and my brothers got a little out of hand one day, things were getting wild, and before we knew it, I had a stick poking into my eye.

The doctors took one look at it and said that they could either just take the eye out and give me a glass replacement, or I could wear a patch for the rest of my life, but that there was no way to save it. Because we didn't have a lot of money at the time (that was before my mom opened the restaurant and my dad's practice got more than two clients), and because I was only six and not really up to a potentially traumatizing operation, we went for the eye patch, and I've had it ever since.

For a while afterwards, I was the neighborhood novelty. Kids made up gruesome stories about how I'd lost it, and they were forever cornering me and asking me to show them. Then the novelty wore off, and I was just a freak. I started spending a lot of time by myself, and if anyone bothered me, I would just threaten to lift the eye patch, and they would scramble away.

Life was pretty miserable for a while, all thanks to my stupid eye. Of course, it's always been a good way to guilt-trip my brothers into doing stuff for me ("You poked my eye out with a stick when I six, so therefore it's _my_ turn to watch TV, and _your_ turn to bring me a soda!") but even that gets used sparingly. Because, to tell the truth, I really am perfectly capable of taking care of myself – except for tripping over thing sometimes since my depth perception is a little off.

When I got to middle school, which was a lot bigger than the elementary school I'd grown up attending, I realized that I wasn't the only freak on the planet. I got joined by a regular old cast of freaks – John, the spaztastic one with ADD, Evan, the supersmart one with the worldly vocabulary, and Joe, the abnormally short one with the foul mouth.

We got really close, really fast. We made up a secret society, and gave each other nicknames. I was Blink (the tall one with the broken eye), John became Skittery (it was supposed to be 'Jitterbug,' but someone misspoke someday, and 'Skittery' just stuck), Evan became Specs (he insists on calling his glasses 'spectacles') and Joe became Racetrack. I'm not sure where the last one came from, actually.

Once we'd recognized each other for our faults and insecurities, they became so commonplace that we never really talked about them, which is why it wasn't until high school that they found out the reason behind my eye patch.

Skittery, who was going through a goth phase, came to school wearing a shirt that said "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eyeball, and then it's like 'Hey, free eyeball!'"

Looking back, it is actually kind of a funny shirt, but I guess I was in a bad mood that day or something because I got all pissed off and started cussing Skittery out. Once Specs calmed me down – he's really good at mediating arguments – it led to a discussion of why I was so angry. Eventually we realized that I still had a lot of unresolved issues surrounding the loss of my eye – I _swear_ that boy is going to be a psychotherapist – and so they invited me to talk about the issues if it would make me feel better.

Actually, I think Racetrack phrased it as "Tell us what the fuck happened to your fucking eyeball so we can shut the fuck up about this stupid shit and eat our goddamn lunch already, you motherfucking asswipe," but it amounts to the same thing.

I told them the story, and when I was finished we had a good laugh about it. I apologized to Skittery ("Jesus Christ, you act like a faggot when you feel guilty, Blink. Just get it the fuck over with already." "Now Racetrack, let's not be presumptuous about anyone's sexual orientation. Just because homosexuals have a reputation for being more sensitive than the average straight male doesn't mean that—" "Shut the fuck up, Specs,") and that was the end of that. We went back to being the school freaks, and whatever "issues" I had surrounding my eye were gone. Sure, strangers still stared at me in the streets, but it ceased to bother me as much as it used to.

That was all fine and dandy until Jenna came along. Here's the thing about Jenna – she's probably one of the most beautiful girls on the planet. She's tall, and slim, but curvy in all the right places, she has golden-brown hair, and green eyes, and – I don't know, basically she's impossible to describe, but I swear that physically, she's perfect.

She transferred to our school in 10th grade. She was poised to be a popular kid, but for some reason that didn't interest her, and on her third day at the school, she made high school history when she sat down at our table and became the first girl ever to join the Freak Group.

And life went on, as it so often does in high school. Things were simple. Specs did our homework, Skittery made us wear tinfoil hats, Racetrack cussed us out for looking at him, and Jenna was… well, Jenna.

Junior year started. Life was good. I had a room to myself in pretty big apartment now that Jason was gone. I got my eyebrow pierced. And I realized, like someone had punched me in the gut, that somewhere between having chipmunk cheeks in kindergarten and being unable to find pants with legs that were long enough in fifth grade, I'd gotten good-looking.

Okay, so I'm no Brad Pitt, and I am still missing an eyeball, but all of a sudden girls were checking me out, and like any normal heterosexual male, I was checking them back. I had a string of nice girlfriends in quick succession that left the Freak Group's heads spinning, and gained myself a reputation (at least in my school) for being a bit of a player. I didn't realize until two days before Christmas Break when Racetrack finally told me, that for the whole year Jenna had been waiting for me to ask her out. ("Hey, manslut, Jenna wants into your skivvies; when the fuck are you planning on plucking her cherry already?")

Honestly, Jenna had never even occurred to me as the kind of girl I'd date, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized how perfect she was. We had the same social group, the same taste in music, I was only a few months older than she was, _and_ she was pretty! What more could I ask for?

I called her on Christmas Eve to wish her merry Christmas and to ask her out. By Valentine's Day, we were going steady. It seemed then like we'd be the Wonder Couple forever, and I don't think there was ever a time in my life when I was happier, but she broke up with me the day summer vacation started. I hadn't seen her since.

I found an empty seat on the train to St. Louis, Missouri. From there I'd catch a bus to San Antonio, Texas, and then another bus to Buentiempo. I'd learned that much from my mom's travel itinerary. Once I'd perused that, I turned to the handwritten letter that was also stuffed into the envelope. My mom has long, sloping handwriting that's always a little hard to read, but she also has this real disregard for lined paper: even if she's using it (which is rare), she never pays attention to the lines, and the letters all decide where and exactly how much space they're going to take up.

_Dear Chad,_

_I know you're probably mad at me right now, and that makes total sense. If I were you, I'd be mad at me too. Now if things have gone the way I've planned them to, we've had a nice discussion about exactly why you're taking this little trip, but in the more likely event that you never gave me a chance to explain, I hope this letter will suffice_.

Great. Way to guilt trip me, mom. Thanks.

I skipped a few paragraphs of her talking about the divorce and dad's new wife. I didn't want to read about that anymore than I had to.

_Buentiempo is a really nice place and I'm sure you'll like it there. I'm probably lying, and feel free to tell me so, but at least allow me a moment of peace in thinking that maybe it won't be so bad._

_The ranch you'll be staying at is called White Saddle ranch. When I lived there, we bred horses, but the new owners deal mostly in cattle. They bought the farm when my parents passed away, and I've stayed in touch with them since then. The official deed-holder is Mrs. Susanna Spencer. She and her husband, Steven, take care of the place, along with their daughter, Andrea, and two other families who are employed as ranch hands._

_Here's the thing, Chad. You told me you were going to get a job this summer, and you didn't. That's why I've taken the liberty of going ahead and getting a job for you. For all intents and purposes, working on this ranch for the next month is your job. The Spencers will be expecting from you exactly what they get from their hired hands, and I'm expecting you to give it to them._

_Since your father left, I've felt you growing away from me. We used to be so close – all of us: you, me, Jason, Ben, Drew and your dad. We were a good family, but we all needed each other, and once your brothers left, and then your dad… I don't know. I guess we fell apart a little._

_Sending you to Texas might not seem like the most logical decision on my part, but I want this for you, Chad. I think it'll be a growing experience. Please, for my sake, for your sake, for the sake of the family that we have, try to make the best of it._

_Reach out to the people you meet. Be nice to them. Take care of yourself._

_I love you, baby._

_--Mom_

I folded the letter back up and stuck it in the pocket of my duffel bag. The weird lumpy feeling in my throat was back.

I stared at my distorted reflection in the train window, and practiced looking tough. From now on I was a ranch hand, and ranch hands were definitely tough. Hell, it was like my six-year-old dream come true: a month on a ranch away from the crowded, smelly, dingy streets of New York. I felt like a cowboy already.

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TBC. 


	2. We Are All Dust in the Wind

Disclaimer: This fanfiction storywas written solely for the entertainment of the readers andis not for profit. Your mom carries the banner. No infringement on their respective copyrights are intended by the author in any way, shape or form. All original characters and plots are copyright of the author.

A/N: I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year, but I'm all blocked on that story, and this ended up coming out instead.

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**Chapter Two: We Are All Dust in the Wind**

Buentiempo was hot. That's what I noticed first. It was past twilight, but I could still feel a dry, starchy heat all around me as I stepped off the bus at last. The trip had taken two days – two horrific, sleep-less, uncomfortable days. I'd spent most of the time writing in a little notebook I'd bought in St. Louis, but that got really old, really fast. You'd think my mom would've packed me something to do at least, but no…

And now I had to wait here until someone from the ranch came to pick me up. I sat down on a bench and dumped my duffel bag in the dust beside me. At least I was outside, right? Clean air… well, hot and dusty air… but still! Air!

I stretched my neck and looked up at the sky. The stars were brighter that I'd ever seen them before. I wondered if my friends back home were looking at the same stars for all of about two seconds. Then I remembered the light pollution in New York and gave that up.

I probably waited about twenty minutes before a car pulled up to the station. All the other passengers who'd been going from San Antonio to Buentiempo – all three of them – had since disappeared. A young woman stepped out of the car and looked around before her eyes landed on me.

"You're Helen's kid?" she called out in a slow drawl.

"Yeah," I said. I looked her up and down. She was cute, in a farm girl sort of way: blonde hair in two braids, scuffed jeans, and a cowboy hat. As she walked towards me, her boots clicked on the wood of the platform.

She reached me, and stuck out her hand. "I'm Andrea," she said. Her shake was firm and solid. I raised my pierced eyebrow in response.

"Chad," I said.

"Right. Chad," she repeated. "Well, c'mon, Chad, it's late. Gotta get you home. You need help with that?" she asked, gesturing to my duffel.

"No," I said, a little defensively. Who was she to ask if I needed help? I must have been half a foot taller than she was, if not more. I scowled at her a little before remembering that I'd be living in her parents' house for the next month. I softened the scowl to a frown.

"Okay," she said, smiling at me pleasantly. She stuck her hands in her pockets, and strolled back to the car, not waiting to see if I'd follow.

We drove in silence for a few minutes before I started feeling antsy. The car was noisy and cramped – not the ideal place for conversation – but it'd been two days since I talked to anyone except the bus driver and the ticket lady.

I asked her the first thing that came to mind. "So, Andrea. How old are you?"

She glanced at me. "Sixteen. How old are you?"

"Almost seventeen," I replied.

"So you're sixteen too," she said.

"Well… yeah." I stopped then, unable to think of a way to restart the conversation. I stared at the passing scenery – fields, a few cows, more fields, and more cows. I shifted uncomfortably. "Your parents are cool with you driving alone at night and stuff?"

"Yeah…" she said, looking at me like I'd asked if her parents were cool with her breathing.

"Oh. Okay." I nodded thoughtfully.

"Why? Your ma and pa don't let you drive alone at night?" She regarded me with a bemused smile.

I wasn't quite sure what to say – there were a variety of things I could've replied with, but in my head they all sounded incredibly weak.

"I don't drive," I said finally.

She gaped at me, and then turned back to the road quickly. "How do you get around, then?"

"I walk. Or take the subway."

"Oh. Well, we don't have any subways here. Just the bus. And that don't really go no place 'cept San Antonio and Beason's Ford. That's the next town over," she explained.

"So you just drive everywhere?"

"Ain't really much driving to be done, unless we're going to the neighbors or need somethin' special from town. We grow most of our own food," Andrea said.

"Don't you have… you know, like, friends? That you visit?" I asked.

"All my friends live on the ranch."

I paused. "Wait, like, the horses or whatever?"

"No! The people. There are people on a ranch," she said, explaining it like I was a retarded six-year-old.

Well, duh. I rolled my eyes. I was about to say something witty and scathingly sarcastic back at her when she stopped the car. "Are we here already?"

"Naw, this here is the town. We're gonna pick up some friends of mine."

So she really did have friends. I pondered that for a second until I realized she was getting out of the car. She didn't tell me to follow her or anything, but I figured I should get a sense of the town, so I got out and shuffled after her.

It was completely dark by now, but the moon was bright enough that we could see pretty clearly. I looked around me, taking in the sights, as it were.

Not that there was much to see. We had parked in front of a store that called itself John's Guns. It had a few rifles for display in the front window, but the store itself was totally dark. Next to John's Guns was what appeared to be a bakery – also dark – and on the other side of that was Steve's Auto Shop. Steve's Auto Shop had a couple lights on in the back. It was the only building I could see with more than one story, and I was pretty sure the second floor was used as Steve's Apartment.

"This here's Main Street," Andrea said. "You keep walking that aways for a short piece and you've got April Street, and then May Street. Those ain't nothing but houses, mostly. Past that's June Street, and past June Street is—"

"July Street?" I guessed.

"No, past June Street is Boyd Street," she replied, as though it were obvious.

"Right," I said. "So, which street do you live on?"

"Oh, we don't live in town," Andrea said. "We turn off at May Street and head a few miles there 'fore we get to the ranch." She looked in that direction like she could see it from where we were standing. Then she stuck her hands in her pockets, and started walking back the way we came. I followed.

Across the street were a few more shops – a women's clothing store (Joan's Clothes), a boot store (Clark's Boots), a feed store (Jay's Feed) – and then a bar, which was called Tom's Bar.

Andrea checked to see if I was behind her, and then walked in.

Now, I know that where I'm from, most bars don't let you just walk right in if you're a minor. I already knew that Andrea was a minor, and the last time I'd checked, I was too. And, of course, having been hustled off in a hurry, I hadn't thought to bring my fake ID.

Yes, I have a fake ID. Yes, I am that hardcore.

But there didn't appear to be a bouncer, or anyone remotely resembling a bouncer, and no one stopped Andrea from walking in, so I followed, and got the first inkling that this place might not be so bad after all. Now, if they'd let me buy a beer…

The bar itself was quiet and dark. Musky, bitter cigarette smoke hung in the air, along with the subtle scent of old fur. A country ballad was playing softly from a jukebox that looked straight out of the 1950s. The walls were decorated with a few flashing neon BEER-BEER-BEER signs, and black-and-white portraits of people on horses.

There was a bar with stools, which was deserted, and a few tables scattered at the other end of the room. A leather couch draped with what was possibly a bear, but could also have been a moose or a yak, dominated the farthest wall from the door, and it was there that Andrea headed.

The couch was occupied by three boys who were playing cards and drinking Coke out of glass bottles. Holy shit, this place was trippy.

"Hey boys," she said, and plopped down in a chair across from them.

Two of them nodded at her, too involved in their game of Go Fish, or Rummy, or whatever for a verbal response.

The third one, who appeared to be winning the game without trying, gave her a charming smile. "Hey, Andy." He was tall-ish, with large biceps, and dark-tinged skin.

She ruffled his curly hair, and peered at his cards. "Ooh, good hand," she said. Then she looked at me. "You ever played Texas Hold 'Em, Chad?"

As if on cue, they all turned to look at me for the first time, giving me a collective once-over that made it hard to suppress the human instinct to run for cover. So I did what I always do in situations where I'm in the spotlight – I made a bad joke.

"You guys call it Texas Hold 'Em here, too? Isn't that kind of redundant?" I attempted a smile that was probably more of a smirk, but was certainly well-intentioned.

"I never thought of that," said one of them. He had a button nose and a bowl haircut, and though his voice was deep and a little nasal, he looked about twelve.

"That's probably because you're stupid, Jake," said the third one. He elbowed Jake in the ribs, and the smiled at me. "You're Helen's kid?"

I nodded. Why were they all on a first name basis with my mom?

He stood up, and stretched out his hand. "Kelly. Jack Kelly. How d'you do?"

'How d'you do?' Who even _says_ that anymore? I shook his hand, and nodded, since I had absolutely no idea how to respond.

The one who'd called Andrea 'Andy' stood up next, and gave me a handshake and a 'How d'you do?' and introduced himself as Malcolm Meyers.

"But we all call him Mush," Andrea said, grinning.

"No! Y'all do _not_ call me Mush," Malcolm said. He rolled his eyes.

"Oh, but we do," responded Jack.

Jake, who was on the far end of the couch and couldn't reach my hand, just gave me a salute and a little "Howdy."

"So," Malcolm said, sitting back down and picking up his cards, "like you said a minute ago, yes – we do call it Texas Hold 'Em, though I s'pose you've got a point."

"Well, thanks," I said.

They all settled into their seats again, and I stood there for a minute, feeling out of place, until Andrea looked at me and said, "You can sit down, you know. If you want to."

"Right. Um. Right." I sat.

They dealt me into the next round, and offered me a Coke, which I accepted. I found myself thinking that I could almost learn to like these people, even if they did say weird stuff like 'How d'you do,' and lived on ranches, and grew their own food.

About half an hour passed before Jake yawned, and they all started to wrap things up.

Andrea stood up and stretched, her back cracking in about six places, and said, "Well, I guess we'd better head on home."

"Sure thing," Jack said. He gathered up the cards and put them back into their box.

Malcolm paid the bartender, and we all wandered outside.

The streets were entirely dark now, but the moon and the stars were shining so brightly that you could see everything anyway. And if you stood in the right place, you could see an unobstructed view all the way to the horizon. It was like being totally isolated, like how it must feel to stand on the moon, and look out into the great vastness of the universe and realize how very tiny you are. And as I looked out to that thin gray line in the distance and took in the stars, at the same time that it was desperately lonely, it also filled me with this sense of knowing exactly what it's like to be everyone else in the world. Because we're _all_ small and insignificant, and in our own insignificance, we become something great and beautiful.

Cheesy, yeah, but looking at the stars that night in all their glory… it seemed true.

"Looks like our city friend is impressed by the view," Jack said, as we walked to Andrea's car.

I smiled sheepishly. "You don't get views like this in New York."

Jake waved goodbye to us and walked home – his dad ran the feed store, and he lived nearby on one of the streets with month names. Malcolm and Jack piled into the car with me and Andrea – Malcolm was the son of one of the families who helped run the ranch, and I assumed that Jack was too.

The drive back took longer than I'd expected. Malcolm and Andrea were chatting quietly about some horse or something, and Jack would interject something every now and then, but they were almost drowned out by the constant rattling of the car. I began to doze off, my cheek pressed against the window, still admiring the stars.

* * *

TBC.


End file.
